Bidding farewell

“I’ve always been a reader. I mean, imagine that,” said Sue DeBrecht, director of the Emmet O’Neal Library. She has been around books all her life, and specifically the books of Mountain Brook for the past 31 years. Now, she’s retiring. 

DeBrecht started her library career at 15, when she worked as a library page at her local library. While studying history at the University of Kentucky, she continued working at the school’s library, and eventually earned her master’s degree in library science from the University of Missouri. Only a few years later, she was head of the Talking Book Library, a library for the blind and physically handicapped, in Louisville. 

Since then, she has earned numerous awards, including the Silver Anvil Award for Excellence from the Public Relations Society of America, the Award for Exceptional Service from the Library and Media Professionals and, most recently, the title of Alabama Library Association Eminent Librarian in 2012.

“[That title] is given to who they deem the most important librarian in the state based on my accommodations for the state and what I’ve done for my library,” DeBrecht said. 

And DeBrecht has done a lot for the Emmet O’Neal Library.

After joining EOL in 1985 as the children’s librarian, she was promoted to director in 1989. The building itself had been added onto many times to accommodate for the community, and DeBrecht realized it needed to be renovated.

“I knew this community deserved better,” she said. “And when you’re in a community of well-educated, well-read residents, the library needs to reflect that, and the library staff needs to reflect that.”

She started by raising staff salaries and increasing the book budget, and not long after, she looked to building an entirely new library.

“We just needed more space,” DeBrecht said, adding that the former library was not up to code. “We decided to take the building down to the ground and rebuild.”

The project was approved by the City Council in January of 1998 and cost $8 million, $1.6 million of which came from the city. The rest came from the fundraising of volunteers and the Mountain Brook Library Foundation, which DeBrecht created years earlier, and on April 8, 2001, the new EOL was opened.

“It’s just been booming ever since … everything has either doubled or tripled,” DeBrecht said. “We really try to listen to what people want, and I think it’s really worked.”

After all the time and work she has put in to EOL, it’s hard for her to pick a favorite moment, but she said she loved working with the Author Series and seeing familiar faces on a day-to-day basis.

“I think one of the best things that I so enjoy is seeing moms that used to come in with their children that are now coming in with their grandchildren,” she said. “It’s just so heartwarming.”

Even though DeBrecht said she is sad to be leaving, she has a full calendar scheduled for retirement.

With plans to visit family, requests for her help with two nonprofit organizations, season tickets to the New Orleans Saints, volunteering at the Barber Motorsports Park and working with the Wenonah High School women’s basketball team, she admits she’s going to be busy.

“It’s a great kind of busy,” she said. “I’m really looking forward to it.”

And of course, the library will be in her thoughts.

“I’m going to miss everybody here; I really am,” DeBrecht said. “[I hope] things just continue to grow and do as well as it has, and I’m sure the new library director is going to continue what we have here and make it even better.”